Best practices aren't

Clients and agencies both love to take refuge in "best practices."

The general definition, at least when it comes to advertising, is that they're a method, technique, style or set of defined guidelines that've shown results in the past better than had they not been used. They're tried and true. They've worked before. They'll work again.

Which begs the question: how do you know?

The truth is best practices make both sides feel they're doing the right thing - the optimum that can be done. It provides acceptable and universally understood cover if the effort fails.

In reality, what they do is slam the door (or block the road - it was the better picture) on new ideas. "Best practices" is the quintessential synonym for "It's worked before, it'll work again."

The problem with that line of thinking is the same one dice have at the crap table: they don't care what the odds are. In other words, best practices are just that. Until they're not.

Next time someone asks if you're using best practices, tell them not a chance. If they ask why not, say it's your best practice against mediocre work.

Word

Like a lot of writers living in Southern California, I’ve worked on many car accounts. From top end $90,000 luxury vehicles to $14,000 coffee-grinders, I’ve written it all.

Commercials, collateral, radio spots, print ads, online banners, interactive content, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, outdoor, customer kits, dealer kits, CPO kits, sale kits, employee bonus kits, warranty kits.

Oddly enough, no matter the price or quality of the car, they all have something in common. The words used to describe them.

Pick a car, any car. I bet it’s exhilarating. It’s probably also a leader in innovation. No doubt it’s been engineered to maximize your driving experience, and designed to turn heads as well as corners.

Let’s not forget the fact it’s also loaded with state-of-the-art technology, as well as class-leading aerodynamics whose job it is to keep you connected to the road. How else could you get a car that makes setting the standard, standard.

But there's no point to any of it unless you're around to enjoy it. That's why the car you're thinking about is loaded with the latest active and passive safety features.

The cars come with airbags. The agencies come with windbags.

Differentiating parody products - different brands with the exact same features - has always been a problem in advertising. Often the only thing that does it is the quality of the creative idea, the consistency of the execution and the personality it establishes for the brand.

I bet you know what BMW builds. But I'm fairly sure you aren't nearly as familiar with the tagline Toyota - which builds awesome cars for all income levels - just spent millions to introduce.

Unless there's a real product difference, almost every category from athletic shoes to cars to fast food use the same words to describe their product. Which makes it even harder to tell them apart.

Sort of like ad agencies.

Tuft luck

His face may not look familiar. However if you live in Southern California, his voice definitely is.

This is Larry Miller, president and CEO of Sit 'N Sleep Mattress Superstores.

You've no doubt heard his radio commercials where he argues with Ira, his "accountant", about discounting the mattresses (SPOILER ALERT: Ira's against it). At the end of every spot, Ira utters his signature line, "You're killing me Larry!", and Larry signs off with his signature line, "We'll beat any price or your mattress is freeeeeeee!"

It's not the kind of creative work I usually respond to in a positive manner. Having said that, I have a confession to make.

I recently bought a bed for my daughter from Sit 'N Sleep. And today, I went there again with my mother-in-law to help her buy one. I know what you're asking: why did I shop there if I don't respond to the kind of advertising they do? The answer is easy.

I saved a mattress full of money.

It's always a fine line when it comes to consumers who also happen to work in agency creative departments. Here's what I mean. Let's take airline print ads. The creative side of me wants to see a clever, unexpected and just plain great headline, poetic copy and a clean yet evocative visual. That would be on a normal day.

But if I happen to be flying from L.A. to NY that week, I don't give a sh#t about any of that. I just want to see $99 each way in really big type.

Art and commerce. Science and instinct. Save and spend. It's a constant tug of war.

But I'm pretty sure Larry isn't losing any sleep over it.

AT&T Jew-verse

Everyone has to live with a certain amount of denial in life. Otherwise, we'd never cross a street, get on a plane or eat at Jack In The Box for fear of what could happen to us. It's how we manage everyday risk and emotion.

Since, according to this article, the average consumer can be exposed to between 3000 and 20,000 ads a day, and actually see and register about 250 of them, commercials - especially bad ones - have also become one of the things we have to deny in order not to be overwhelmed by them. Out of necessity, they become white noise.

It'd be a second career getting mad about all of them.

However, there is one commercial so bad, so hateful, so grating in the most primal way, I feel pointing it out is less of a gripe and more of a public service. It's this one:

Here's how I'm pretty sure the meeting went.

CLIENT: What do you think the kid should look like?

ART DIRECTOR: Well, he should be...

ACCOUNT PERSON: We were leaning towards a "New York" look. (actually does air quotes)

CLIENT: You mean Jewish.

ACCOUNT PERSON: Yes, you know, curly hair, big nose...

Laughter erupts in the room.

CLIENT: Can we have him say some Jew sounding words?

WRITER: Like fancy, schmancy or for cryin' out loud?

CLIENT: Yes!

ACCOUNT PERSON: (hamming it up - no pun intended) Oy vey, we'll do it.

ART DIRECTOR: Maybe an argyle sweater, so he looks like the old Je...uh, old "New York" guys you see in the jewelry mart.

CLIENT: I love it. What do they say?

ACCOUNT PERSON: Mazel tov?

CLIENT: That's it!

Laughter erupts again.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Jews on TV. I can even tolerate the stereotyping. But what I hate is a stale concept, long past its expiration date, that's been done a gazillion times before - in this case a kid talking like a wiser, older "New York" grandfather to kids slightly younger than him who, for some inexplicable reason, know how to act their real age.

And wagging the corn dog while he's talking must be a Jewish tradition I'm not familiar with.

It's frustrating because it's AT&T. A big client with a huge advertising budget and decent production dollars to spend, and this is the best they (and their 65-year old, Jackie Mason loving writer/art director team) could do.

Then, just to make sure there's absolutely no escape, they run the crap out of this spot. You can't turn on the TV without seeing it everywhere. Maybe the kid got them the air time wholesale.

The best advice I can give the team, or anyone else associated with this spot is that same advice that works managing life's risks.

If someone asks if it's your spot, deny it.

Wrongful Termination - Chapter 8

Jack Sheridan finished questioning Barbara Beckwith, as well as the rest of the creative department. What he learned wasn’t going to make his job any easier.

It seemed during his career, Dean Montaine had made a lot of enemies, even for an ad man. The creative part was the way he made them. Naturally, he’d plagiarized work from other creative teams who worked for him and represented it as his own. This was nothing new. The practice was rampant throughout ad agencies, especially if it was a good idea. Many of the most famous ad campaigns of the last fifty years have over a hundred teams claiming ownership. Some on campaigns that came out before they were born. For example, everyone seems to have worked on Volkswagen in the sixties. Montaine had even taken credit for the classic ad campaign for the original Volkswagen Beetle, despite the fact his resume didn’t list Doyle Dane Bernbach, the agency that created the ads.

But the thing Dean did that made him so insidious was this: he made you think he was on your side. That he was going to the mat for you. He made you believe he was your friend.

It was a lot of little things really. The way he asked questions about other creatives, leaning in to you, then lowering his voice to a soft whisper that implied an unstated confidence between two professionals. If the creative team in his office was junior, he’d give them lots of attention. Ask what they thought of something he’d written. They’d be wowed. After all, Dean had taken credit for creating a successful national campaign for the popular French mineral water Clair, as well as a start up car company, Neptune. Junior teams didn’t know that in fact he’d stolen those ideas from juniors at the agency.

Upper management was no friend of his either.

On more than one occasion, Dean worked for an agency freelance, only to try and ingratiate himself with the creative department and general manager, then organized a mutiny to squeeze out the executive creative director who’d brought him in in the first place. Sometimes he succeeded.

Then there were the people who ran awards shows. They hated him. Advertising awards are the guilty pleasure of every agency creative. If you ask, creatives roll their eyes at the idea of them. They make a big show of taking refuge behind the fact good work is it’s own reward. But inside every copywriter and art director is a little insecure kid looking for approval and validation. They love winning awards. They love saying they’ve won awards. They love schmoozing at the awards shows. They love getting drunk and seeing if the rumors are true about the media girls at the awards shows. If all creatives hated awards the way they profess to, the shows would never sell out, or be able to charge their obscene entry fees.

Of course, one way to help your chances of winning is to enter lots of ads. Which is exactly what Montaine did year after year. He had the agencies he worked for spend a fortune on entry fees. And he entered lots of work that wasn’t his. The problem was, the people who'd actually done the work also entered it. So when the shows received different entry forms with credits that didn’t jive, they called Dean to clear them up. He always told them the other people were lying. The award show officials knew better.

The women in his life hated him. All of them. His daughter. His wife. His ex-wives. His mistress. In fact, a woman didn’t even have to have a relationship with Dean to hate him. She just had to have a conversation.

When Dean was at one of the bars he frequented, somewhere between a nice buzz and completely passed out, if he saw a woman sitting alone he'd strike up a conversation with her. It didn’t matter if they were waiting for someone, or if they were obvious about not wanting to talk to an overaged hippie. None of it mattered. His usual line would go like this.

“Excuse me, ever see that Clint Eastwood movie where they hang him by mistake?” If the girl said yes, he said, “You know, even when he was swinging from the tree he wasn’t as hung as I am.”

Believe it or not, every once in a while it worked. But when it didn’t, it could be brutal. He'd been slapped, spit on, kicked, had hot coffee thrown at him and been beaten to a pulp by boyfriends who'd shown up while he was still there laughing at his own juvenile joke.

Even when he thought he was being funny, it wasn’t hard to hate Dean.

Wrongful Termination: Chapter 3

Any similarity to persons living or dead, locations or incidents is purely coincidental.

As he walked the hall towards Dean’s office, he passed framed copies of ads Cressman/Krate had produced. Sheridan was amazed that this brain clutter could be displayed with such misplaced pride.

There was an ad for a gas station convenience store showing two just regular blue-collar guys enjoying a beer. “I love it when they make it easier for people to drink behind the wheel,” Sheridan thought. There was an ad for a tennis shoe manufacturer he’d never heard of, a Nike wannabe, showing an extremely buxom girl spilling out of her ridiculously short tennis outfit. The headline read “Love All.” The last one before he turned the corner was a public service ad for a needle exchange program. It showed a drugged out heroin user balancing awkwardly on his knees in front of what looked like a Greyhound station men’s room toilet, throwing his guts up. Even Sheridan had to admit it was a powerful visual. The headline read “Without clean needles, you never know what position you’ll find yourself in.” It was a good message. Didn’t change his opinion about ad people, but still, a good message.

Sheridan walked into the corner office that had belonged to Dean Montaine. The first thing he noticed was the spectacular view overlooking the Santa Monica mountains to the north, and a glimpse of the Pacific ocean to the west. For the last thing Montaine ever saw, he could’ve done worse.

He stooped down next to the body that the coroner had cut down from the light fixture, and was now lying on the industrial carpeted floor covered with a sheet from the knees up.

Montaine’s boots were sticking out the bottom.

Sheridan pulled back the sheet. What he saw was pretty routine as far as hangings went. The head was sitting on the neck at a fifty degree angle, as if he’d been straining to get a better look at a girl in a short skirt walking away from him, or on the phone too long with the receiver between his chin and shoulder. Clearly some additional force besides gravity had been used. If, and it was a preliminary if, it had been murder, then judging by the ransacked looks of the office it appeared as though Montaine had fought the good fight against being placed in a noose and hung from the light. Putting up that kind of resistance, the murderer would have had to use force, yanking him down and snapping his neck. On the other hand, if it did turn out to be suicide, it meant Montaine literally would have to have taken a flying leap off his oak-grain desk with considerable force to do damage like this. His eyes, bloodshot and blank, had popped out of his head far enough for the corneas to touch the lenses of his Coke bottle, tri-focal glasses. His swollen purple, black tongue was sticking out and down to the left side of his mouth, with a thin thread of spittle running down it. Hanging was never a very dignified way to go.

Sheridan also made some personal observations. Montaine was in his late fifties, about six feet tall, hundred seventy pounds. He had a beer gut, and broken blood vessels all along his nose and cheeks. Hard drinker. His hair was straight, long and greasy. His glasses were Jean Paul Gaultier, very expensive, very fashionable. Round in a way that reminded Sheridan of John Lennon. Montaine was wearing stonewashed blue jeans, which had a large wet spot on the front where he’d pissed himself, though it was hard to say if he’d done it before or after. His fingers were stained yellow. His teeth were yellow, brown and decayed from years of alcohol and cigarettes. And probably other things as well. All in all, Sheridan thought, not an attractive man.

Looking at the desk, he noticed Montaine had a small plaque framed in shellacked driftwood branches. It read “Old hippies never die.”

“Guess he was wrong about that.” Sheridan said.